My Dear Readers:
In celebration of the Tanka Poetry Month (to expand the readership base for tanka through tweeting at least one tanka a day for the month of May, for more information, see Celebrate Tanka Poetry Month with NeverEnding Story), I am pleased to introduce you to Kinuyo Tanaka's The Eternal Breasts (乳房よ永遠なれ, 1955), a feminist movie about Japanese tanka poet, Fumiko Nakajo, author of Breasts of Snow, the story and tanka of one of the best tanka poets, Fumiko Nakajo (1922-54), who is, though almost unknown outside of Japan, considered to be the third in the three most famous Japanese female poets in the last century, right up there with Akiko Yosano and Machi Tawara (see my "Cool Announcement" post, "Breasts of Snow," that includes the bio, reviews, and selected tanka).
Roughly based on the autobiography of Fumiko Nakajo, who died of breast cancer in 1954, aged 31, The Eternal Breasts provides a window into Japanese society from a feminist perspective; it depicts a woman’s struggle through marital betrayal, divorce, single motherhood, and growing independence in rural Japan, and most importantly, her tough fight against a male-dominated literary establishment to become a poet who successfully creates "a room of [her] own."
In celebration of the Tanka Poetry Month (to expand the readership base for tanka through tweeting at least one tanka a day for the month of May, for more information, see Celebrate Tanka Poetry Month with NeverEnding Story), I am pleased to introduce you to Kinuyo Tanaka's The Eternal Breasts (乳房よ永遠なれ, 1955), a feminist movie about Japanese tanka poet, Fumiko Nakajo, author of Breasts of Snow, the story and tanka of one of the best tanka poets, Fumiko Nakajo (1922-54), who is, though almost unknown outside of Japan, considered to be the third in the three most famous Japanese female poets in the last century, right up there with Akiko Yosano and Machi Tawara (see my "Cool Announcement" post, "Breasts of Snow," that includes the bio, reviews, and selected tanka).
Roughly based on the autobiography of Fumiko Nakajo, who died of breast cancer in 1954, aged 31, The Eternal Breasts provides a window into Japanese society from a feminist perspective; it depicts a woman’s struggle through marital betrayal, divorce, single motherhood, and growing independence in rural Japan, and most importantly, her tough fight against a male-dominated literary establishment to become a poet who successfully creates "a room of [her] own."
The Eternal Breasts, 1955, directed by Kinuyo Tanaka
Below are three tanka about her heart-wrenching struggle with breast cancer:
as the surgical knife
slowly slits open
the past
my fetuses appear
kicking each other in the dark
in search of a shore
where I might spot my breast
drifting along
with white jellyfish
I'll go to sleep again
that hill
shaped like the breast
I have lost
will be adorned with
dead flowers in winter
(translated by Makoto Ueda)
Chen-ou
